Low-temperature hybrid microwave annealing process for high-performance indium–tungsten oxide thin-film transistors

A low-thermal-budget annealing process is essential for advancing high-performance thin-film transistors (TFTs) grown on thermally sensitive substrates. In this study, we demonstrated the effectiveness of hybrid microwave annealing (h-MWA) for indium–tungsten oxide (IWO) TFTs. The h-MWA-treated devices exhibited superior electrical characteristics, including a field-effect mobility (μFE) of 30.75 cm2/V s, a subthreshold swing of 0.33 V/dec, and an on/off current ratio of 1.09 × 108, outperforming those treated by conventional thermal annealing, even under low effective temperatures and short annealing durations. Furthermore, h-MWA significantly enhanced device reliability under gate bias stress, mitigating time-dependent threshold voltage shifts (ΔVth) and increasing charge trapping time (τ). These findings establish h-MWA as a transformative, low-temperature post-deposition annealing technique for high-performance IWO TFTs, suitable for advancing the development of energy-efficient, next-generation oxide electronics.